Universal City Nissan / bad experience at universal city nissan

We have been shopping for a car for almost a month now and since, have been trying to find a good deal from various dealerships.

Until now I had never considered a Nissan vehicle and my concentration was primarily on American makes.

In this competitive world and with ever rising gas prices, it's hard to not consider Japanese manufacturers and thus came into picture, Nissan.

Thanks to a very aggressive marketing campaign and hundreds of daily touch points, the aired jingle "Universal City Nissan" rang a bell and you were the instant choice.

On the said day, we came into your dealership and met a sales agent, Ulysis.

Ulysis was great from the start.

He not only came running and helped us park our car, but also escorted us to the lot.

Ulysis was knowledgeable, and answered all our questions.

He kept giving us options, explaining in detail the positives and the deltas of each car and really helped us make an educated choice of vehicle.

He was nice, friendly and jovial, and we were very comfortable with him handling our case with good professionalism.

We told him that price and payment options would be a big criteria for us selecting a vehicle, but he told us not to worry and we should select the car first, as price can be worked out later. It looked like he was not going to let us go home that night without a car.

We finally selected a vehicle from your lot, a Pre-certified Altima, and proceeded inside the facility.

Once inside, we were asked to sit in one cubicle where he took our details and filled out a credit application.

At the beginning, I had told Ulysis that since I've just moved to the US only 6 months back, I don't have established credit with the 3 credit bureaus.

We were communicated that UCN was the biggest Nissan dealership and there was no credit situation that they couldn't handle.

A moment after taking down our details, Ulysis brought another gentleman, introduced him to us as the sales manager "Sia", who would be making the deal and processing the paperwork for us.

We explained to Sia our credit situation and made him aware of our budget. Also informed him that I realize that since I'm a first time buyer, I'd have to put in 30-40% cash down and expect a higher APR.

Mr. Sia, while listening, and upon knowledge of our budget, said they'd reduce the price by a couple of thousands from the sticker price and when we told him that the price was still way more than the actual market price of the vehicle he mentioned "why do you think we're giving you the 100, 000mi warranty" etc and made a few 'non-sales', for lack of better words, statements which totally put us off.

He said that he could only come down, very marginally from the sticker price and that we can not get anything in our little budget of $13, 000 from UCN.

Not only that, Mr. Sia went on to tell us that since we are first time buyers, �� There is no way you guys could get financed", verbatim.

Upon this my wife told him that we do have similar or lower offers for the same pre-certified model from other dealerships and that they were ready to finance us as well, knowing our credit situation.

To this he said "well, yeah then maybe you could, why don't you then get your car from them? Smaller dealers may give you better option"

Mr. Sia either did not know what he was talking about or was least interested in selling the car to us as we were the ones giving him options on how we could buy a car from UCN.

As a last attempt, I asked him if there was anything that he could work out for us, to which his cold shoulder replied, NO.

Ulysis was observing all this while, and saw the deal slip by. He then, in his might as a sales rep, to try to save the deal, started to throw in options to Sia, "Sir, can we not make a deal on the green one, or some other car with them?"

While we were still seated, Mr. Sia got up from his chair, and literally walked out from the cubicle; with Ulysis followed him and it looked like he was trying to convince him to not kill the deal.

All this coming and going of Mr. Sia happened in a little over 4 minutes. Let's say 5.

WOW!!!

My wife and I were too amazed at the disparity in professionalism, sales attitude, and motivation to sell between your employees.

We almost couldn't believe what had just happened.

Walking out that day I swore that, not only will I never return to Universal city Nissan, but will enlighten every person I know with my experience, who is a potential buyer.

In this competitive world when companies are struggling and striving to outshine each other in customer services experience and taking desperate measures to create "Net-Promoters" for their companies, Congratulations, you have just made a "Negative-Promoter".

Comments

I went to UCN for the program cash for clunkers. So my Sister called a representative well he said yes. The problem was that my dads car the transmisson didnt work so the car {clunker} didnt drive. My sister told the rep over the phone. He said yes then the manager at dealer said no it has to drive to the dealer! He Said we qualify. But why they want it to drive because they arent gonna use it ? So my dad instead went to Down Town LA Nissan they were so much better! Service is great! my dad got a Nissan Versa 1.6 Base model! :D